mgo.licio.us

"The face of the operation is Briatore (referred to exclusively in the film by his colleagues and angry, chanting detractors as "Flavio"), an anthropomorphic radish who spends most of his time at QPR plotting to fire all of the managers."

At press time, Harbaugh had sent Michigan’s athletic department an envelope containing a heavily annotated seating chart, a list of the 63,000 seat views he had found unsatisfactory, and a glowing 70-page report on section 25, row 12, seat 9, which he claimed is “exactly what the great sport of football is all about.”

WHAT COLOR IS THIS MAN. Adidas released some uniformz for Nebraska that are as goofy as they usually are. I don't want to talk about that. I want to talk about what color this person is.

Look at this person's face. That's weird. I guess he's put eyeblack everywhere in an effort to look like a big and tough and maybe remind people of the Ultimate Warrior. You can see that at the edge of his face his skin tone goes back to the lighter shade of his nose.

Miller’s fallback plan has become a reality, as he told SI.com on Thursday night that he plans to start the 2015 season playing H-Back—a hybrid receiver position—for the Buckeyes. Miller hasn’t completely closed the door on playing quarterback, as he estimates that he’ll spend 80% of the time during training camp at receiver and 20% with the quarterbacks. But Miller said with more than two months until he’ll be completely healthy at quarterback, he’s approaching this season as primarily a wide receiver.

"H-back" means a different thing in Urban Meyer's offense than it does in Hoke or Harbaugh's. This is not Wyatt Shallman. This is Percy Harvin.

That does chop down on the "yes, but" Michigan fans are preparing after they saw Devin Gardner's somewhat amateurish attempt to play WR. Miller's going to be an option on a bunch of running plays and get targeted on screens. He is not going to be asked to track balls over his shoulder after lining up on a cornerback—at least not much. That makes his move depressingly plausible.

It also opens up the kind of trick plays you last saw eight-year-olds come up with at the family picnic. Dude.

I have an easy way to fix this. Nobody knows what a catch is anymore. I don't have to tell Lions fans this, of course. Michigan's also had their brushes with the gray area against Virginia Tech and Iowa. The NFL's attempt to fix things:

The problem here is that this is not an algorithm for determining if it is a catch. You need a function. This is an NFL function, FWIW.

function isitacatch(feet_down, touchy_feely_vars){

if (feet_down < 2)

return false;

if (feet_down > 2)

return true;

if (feet_down == 2)

did the ball touch the ground? return false; did the receiver bobble the ball such that he had to re-catch it while out of bounds? return false;

return true;

}

College version is the same except you return false only on feet_down < 1 and check the touchy-feely on 1 or 2. Also I know you don't need the last if statement.

The VT and Iowa plays above should not have to go to extraordinarily long replays subject to announcer debate. Both of them touched the ground. You have one job as a receiver: don't let it touch the ground.

At some point you have accomplished that job. That point is currently determined by feelingsball instead of "you took another step," which is pretty close to definitive. Engineers should write these things, not lawyers.

Gary Andersen sipping tea. Wisconsin has shot down one of their top recruits:

Incoming freshman running back Jordan Stevenson was denied admission to the University of Wisconsin, according to a report by 247sports.com.

Stevenson, a four-star prospect who was considered one of the Badgers’ top recruits for the 2015 class, confirmed on Twitter that his recruitment is open to any Division I program.

“#Badgernation Thanks for all the love also all the support through all I have been through much love,” Stevenson tweeted.

That's a bizarre situation. Players do occasionally get rejected by the NCAA clearinghouse, but in those cases the player heads to JUCO. Stevenson is apparently trying to find a landing spot this fall. And when serious academic schools who are serious reject players for reasons other than "you are literally not eligible to play", they do it before, say, late July.

If Stevenson does end up on campus this fall (Arkansas?), Gary Andersen's shocking jump to Oregon State will look pretty justified. It's one thing to deny entry to a player. It's another to do it now, months after he signed a LOI.

The wave, 1984. They were super excited about new technology back in the day:

According to Wikipedia, Michigan brought the wave back from a game against Washington in 1983. A letter to the editor claimed that it stuck because

"There are three reasons why the wave caught on at Michigan Wolverine games: It gave the fans something to do when the team was leading its opponent by 40 points, it was thrilling and exciting to see 105,000 people in the stands moving and cheering, and Bo Schembechler asked us not to do it."

From Michigan it spread to the Tigers, and when the Tigers won the World Series that year it was on TV a ton. The rest is history.

Ahmir Mitchell Visiting Saturday

Four-star NJ WR Ahmir Mitchell, Michigan's top target at the position, will visit campus with his mother this Saturday. This is an opportunity for M to seal up a commitment; as Tim Sullivan outlines at The Wolverine, Mitchell will visit Ohio State the day prior, and unless they make a much stronger push than they have of late then the Wolverines will continue to be in the driver's seat ($):

Mitchell will be in the Midwest to take part in Ohio State's Friday Night Lights elite camp Friday evening, and will make the trip up to Ann Arbor afterwards. He has previously named the Wolverines and Buckeyes his top two (with Notre Dame not far behind), though it's unclear whether OSU would push for a commitment - or potentially, even accept one - at this time.

"He's giving Ohio State their last shot for Friday Night Lights," said Rivals.com Mid-Atlantic Recruiting Analyst Adam Friedman. "He will be at Michigan for the Barbecue. I think he's trying to figure out where he does stand with a couple schools."

The presence of Mitchell's mother is also a sign things could be winding down. While the Buckeyes are a threat, it's unclear whether they'll make a strong push for Mitchell, as they're heavily involved with a few other WR targets they seem to have higher on their board. If that remains the case, Michigan is the heavy favorite.

CURRENT STATUS

ACE: Round 4, Pick 2: Jack Conklin, OT, MSU

Michigan State has assembled a strong offensive line, finishing 7th in adjusted sack rate and 28th in adjusted line yards last year, and the strongest piece of that line is left tackle Jack Conklin, who went from recruiting unknown to a possible franchise tackle:

It has been well-documented that Cook and Calhoun might have been first-round picks had they declared for the upcoming draft, but according to Kiper, the same might have been true about the less-heralded Conklin.

"I think he's a first-round caliber, yes I do,'' Kiper said on his Wednesday conference call, asked about Conklin's upside. "I think Brandon Scherff from Iowa, not much separating Scherff from Conklin, and some may even think that Conklin is a more highly rated player.

"(Conklin) was on my radar because I thought maybe he'll come out, because he has such a high grade, but by going back, you're looking at an elite of the elite. Jack Conklin has a chance to be a very very high first round pick, certainly the first offensive tackle off the board.''

The former walk-on has allowed only 2.5 sacks in his 27 career games, which include 23 consecutive starts at LT. Ohio State's fearsome pass rush produced just one sack against MSU last year; that came from DT Michael Bennett. Only Baylor DE/Terminator Shawn Oakman gave Conklin much in the way of trouble last season, and nobody else's team in this exercise has a Shawn Oakman, let alone a Joey Bosa.

SETH: Round 4, Pick 3: Leonte Carroo, WR, Rutgers

I'm going off the premise that I'm being judged on what Carroo accomplishes with Connor Cook throwing to him. But it's not like any of the 94 targets he turned into 1,086 yards and 10 touchdowns were made easy by Gary Nova.

There are two schools of thought on the "Carroo did a lot of that on broken plays" theory. Ace gave you one. Here's another: behind a turnstile offensive line, Gary FRIGGIN NOVA was the third most efficient passer in the Big Ten last year, in large part because running around like Miley Cyrus then chucking it at Carroo and three defenders was a totally efficient thing to do.

I scouted this guy for last year's draft because Bill Connelly's targeting (YPT, NEY, RYPR) stats made Carroo pop out among the conference's best. I didn't end up taking Leonte then because the majority of his yards were against lightweights. Carroo still torched bad defenses (151 yards vs. WSU, 140 on Tulane, 125 on Indiana) in 2014, but also had 84 yards on 6 catches while matched against Jordan Lucas, 5 for 100 against Doran Grant, and 6 for 104 on Will Likely. Trae Waynes got the better of him (1 catch for 6 yards on 5 targets); Michigan stuck a safety over him and got bombed everywhere else. He finished top 10 in the country in all three of Connelly's imperfect metrics, indistinguishable from Lippett.

Michael Thomas is an excellent Avant; Carroo as a junior was more comparable to Braylon at his age (67 catches, 1035 yards 10 TDs). Yes, with the occasional drops. Still a highly dangerous weapon I didn't think would slip to me.

Westerkamp is best known for the time he hauled in a catch that looked like a Madden glitch, but there's more substance to him. His 65.7% catch rate and 11.1 yards per target are both better than oft-targeted (25.6% of passes) former teammate Kenny Bell's 54.0% catch rate and 9.1 YPT. Westerkamp was targeted on just 19.7% of Nebraska's passes, but that will rise due to the departure of the poofily coiffed hair and production of Bell. (I realize his hair had nothing to do with how often Westerkamp got the ball, but it's impossible to write about Kenny Bell and not mention the hair.) While Bell was more frequently targeted than Westerkamp on passing downs (25.6% to 17.1%, respecitvely), Westerkamp again had the better catch rate (60.7%) and YPT (14.0); even when defenses had an idea where the ball was going Westerkamp was able to put up good numbers. I'll happily take a guy who has a better catch rate and YPT than a fifth-round draft pick who was first-team All-Big Ten last season.

If the ball is ever going to get to Westerkamp there should probably be an offensive line, and Spriggs is arguably the best available with Decker and Conklin off the board. Spriggs has started at left tackle since he was a true freshman, earning honorable mention All-Big Ten status every season. He's 6-7, 305 and has anchored a line that has averaged more than five yards per carry the last two seasons. While that number was certainly aided by Tevin Coleman, Spriggs' pass protection is an asset. He'll give up two sacks as he does every year and I'll be happy to have one of the top-10 tackles in the 2016 draft. Also:

While our attention has, for the most part, turned to football in the offseason, a new KenPom feature has me digging back into hoops. On individual player pages, KenPom now displays split stats for performaces against (1) conference opponents, (2) games against top-100 opponents, adjusted for game location, and (3) games against top-50 opponents, with the same home-court adjustment.

This is a very useful tool for parsing out how well players did against better competiton. Michigan's big man situation continues to fascinate me, so I thought it'd be useful to see how last year's troika performed against the best teams on the schedule, especially since the disparity in big man quality tends to be large between bad teams and good teams. While KenPom hasn't yet separated out stats for non-top-100 opponents (consider this a humble suggestion from a mathematically challenged blogger), we can get a baseline by looking at each player's full stat line from last season.

%Min

%Poss

ORtg

OR%

DR%

TORate

Blk%

FC/40

FTM-FTA

2PM-2PA

3PM-3PA

Ricky Doyle

43.7

17.9

117.4

10.4

11.9

12.0

2.6

4.0

39-66 (59%)

72-119 (61%)

0-0

Max Bielfeldt

34.2

22.3

107.2

12.4

19.5

13.7

1.9

3.8

22-32 (69%)

54-99 (55%)

8-30 (27%)

Mark Donnal

22.3

17.0

119.6

10.2

16.1

9.6

3.8

6.4

19-27 (70%)

25-44 (57%)

7-19 (37%)

And now, each player's stats against only top-50 opponents. This covers 13 games from last season; Ricky Doyle and Max Bielfeldt played in all 13, while Mark Donnal participated in 11 of them.

%Min

%Poss

ORtg

OR%

DR%

TORate

Blk%

FC/40

FTM-FTA

2PM-2PA

3PM-3PA

Ricky Doyle

51.4

15.5

117.7

8.3

13.5

12.6

2.2

3.8

16-25 (64%)

33-55 (60%)

0-0

Max Bielfeldt

32.7

22.9

91.8

8.7

21.9

16.7

2.1

4.6

8-11 (73%)

19-38 (50%)

3-14 (21%)

Mark Donnal

17.0

20.6

128.2

13.9

7.3

3.6

4.0

8.4

7-11 (64%)

12-22 (55%)

2-6 (33%)

The above helps clarify why John Beilein was comfortable letting Bielfeldt go despite having the opportunity to bring him back. A few takeaways:

Doyle held strong. Doyle's offensive numbers stayed almost exactly the same against top-50 competition; his shooting held at 60%, he took care of the ball, and he allowed the offense to run through the guards/wings. While his offensive rebounding dipped, he still did pretty well in that regard. Equally as encouraging was his ability to hold up defensively; Doyle's foul rate stayed level and he took on a larger share of rebounding duties against top teams.

Bielfeldt's shortcomings became apparent. Bielfeldt proved effective against mid- and lower-tier teams in large part because he dominated the offensive glass, providing himself with easy putback opportunties. Against top-tier teams, however, his offensive rebounding fell off dramatically, his turnover rate rose, and he didn't have a post game or reliable outside shot to make up for either.

Bielfeldt also resorted to fouling more on defense. He was clearly overmatched on that end against high-level competition and that took him out of games even when he had it going offensively; for example, he had nine points on 4-6 shooting in the home overtime loss to Wisconsin but picked up three fouls in 14 minutes because he couldn't defend Frank Kaminsky or Nigel Hayes.

Donnal showed promise on one end. Donnal's decreased role as the season wore on means his sample size is smaller than the others—he essentially played two games worth of minutes against top-50 teams, and he did so in short stints. Those short stints weren't always by design. Donnal was foul-prone in the best of times but especially against good teams; yes, that 8.4 fouls/40 minutes figure is real and speaks to some major defensive shortcomings that were apparent to anyone who watched him play.

With a bulked-up DJ Wilson—listed at 6'9, 240 on the updated roster—set to bolster depth up front, it makes sense for Beilein to prioritize developing Donnal and Wilson into reliable options instead of giving significant minutes to a redshirt senior whose limitations become very apparent in the most important games. With a year of development under Ricky Doyle's belt and a logjam at the four, Michigan may only need one of those two to play a major role off the bench anyway.

This fall Gedeon answers press conference questions by saying things are getting pretty serious and stating that he loves technology. Bank on it.

Finally. #M00N makes Erase This Game. The Funchess butt fumble is not even mentioned. That's how #M00N #M00N was.

M00N is a sad game, and some of that tragedy comes from the advantage of hindsight. Winning didn't save Michigan's season or Brady Hoke's job, as they followed this with a home finale loss to Maryland. Losing didn't inspire Northwestern to a turnaround; even though they beat Notre Dame a week later, the Wildcats missed bowl eligibility by losing to a depleted Illinois team in their last game. That's the bad news.

The good news is every astronaut gets astronaut ice cream. Let's check out today's flavors.

I have been eating Cookies 'N Ennui for a long time now.

Okay. Former TE/DE Keith Heitzman is at Ohio for his final year of eligibility. The Dispatch has an article that's trying to rake up some muck on a standard practice in college:

Keith Heitzman understood that big changes were in order after Jim Harbaugh was hired to replace Brady Hoke as Michigan football coach just hours before the New Year.

What staggered Heitzman was that he might have been one of those changes. Every player going into his fifth year of eligibility, he was told, would have to audition for his job during spring practices.

Heitzman, degree in hand, opted out. That's fine for him and fine for Michigan.

The worst thing you can pin on Harbaugh is a lack of tact. We will put this evidence of Harbaugh's lack of tact in the extradimensional bag of holding. There it can mingle with its fellows and not fill the universe stem to stern.

For perspective, over the years I've read plenty of articles that reference Notre Dame's policy in this department. They come at it from the other direction, wondering not who might be departing but who might be coming back:

The future for the remaining 14 seniors on the roster, all of whom are eligible for a fifth year, is less certain. … At the most, half of them will return. Notre Dame’s 2015 recruiting class sits at 21 verbal commitments, which, if all 21 sign letters of intent in February, will give the Irish 78 scholarship players of the 85 the NCAA allows.

All of ND's seniors walk on senior day, even if they have another year of eligibility. That's how much of a non-story this is.

Is he Carl Monday's brother? That's not generally how names work but we've already established that Gary Money Mahoney is not beholden to your "rules" about nomenclature, man.

5. This reporter may have had to scrounge up quotes for this dumb story, wondering the whole time how she was ever going to pay off her Princeton J-school student loans, but at least she's not working for Gawker.

6. I may have spent too much time on this.

1977 pep rally. Featuring Bo! He guarantees a win! They burn an OSU player in effigy! They wear 70s clothes! The reporter's jacket!

Michigan won 14-6. Harbaugh was probably at the pep rally and knew Bo had zero basis for getting mad at him when he issued his guarantee.

Surprise. That CSG survey they did in the middle of the general admission fiasco makes the WSJ because it appears to be the first serious attempt to figure out what the kids actually want at football games. A company has just confirmed that with a much larger survey that somehow surprises the author:

The most recent support for this surprising result comes from a new survey by the National Association of Collegiate Marketing Administrators and Oregon’s sports marketing center. It asked almost 24,000 students across the country to rank the factors that influenced their decision to attend games. By far the most important was a student’s interest in that sport. By far the least important was a stadium’s cellular reception or wireless capability.

The study is so counterintuitive that it seems like it must be an outlier—except that it is supported by similar polls in places where college football is massively popular.

At Michigan, when the student government asked undergraduates why they go to football games, what they found clashed with conventional wisdom: Michigan’s students simply didn’t care that much about mobile connectivity. In-game Wi-Fi wasn’t as essential as lower ticket prices or better seat locations. Among the seven possible improvements to the game-day experience, in fact, students ranked cell reception last.

I'm not sure where that notion came from, other than the sort of gentleman who talks about social engagement and uses hashtags# like coffee dad. And it's not like they even fixed mobile connectivity at Michigan despite thinking that was the most important thing they could do.

Gonna get paid. I don't think Jim Delany has much to do with it, but Lost Letterman points out that the Big Ten is likely to get paid when their contract—the last to get renegotiated for a long time—comes up:

Since launching FOX Sports 1 two summers ago, FOX has been waiting for its chance to put a huge monkey wrench in ESPN’s world dominance of sports. This is that chance.

The Big 10’s 10-year, $1 billion contract with ESPN and six-year, $72 million deal with CBS for select basketball games and six-year, $145 million pact for the Big 10 Championship Game all expire after the 2016-17 season and a new, gargantuan deal will be struck within the next 12 months.

The only two legitimate TV players for the conference’s Tier 1 football rights (best games) are Disney (ABC/ESPN) and FOX, as CBS already has the Tier 1 rights to the SEC and NBC is content airing Notre Dame home games.

The only thing we know for certain is that the Big 10 is about to get paid.

Delany will get the credit for being the camel herder who sat down on this particular patch of oil again, when literally anyone could sit in a room and watch FOX and ESPN go blow for blow. The Big Ten will use this money to hire more MAC coaches.

If nothing else, Kam Chatman’s freshman season reinforced how impressive Glenn Robinson’s career was at Michigan. Chatman, like Robinson, was a highly-touted prospect who was expected to step in and play 30 minutes a night right away; unlike Glenn, Kam struggled mightily and never adjusted to the college game well enough to merit a spot in the rotation. While classmates saw increased minutes after Caris LeVert and Derrick Walton were injured, Kam slowly disappeared, unable to morph Beilein’s malleable “power forward” spot enough to fit his skills.

It was easy to buy in before the season – Chatman and a new big man (Donnal or Doyle) were expected to hold down the front-court, but Doyle, who was far less highly-recruited, outperformed Chatman easily. Beilein’s offensive system is mythologized and Chatman’s struggles can be explained away, but many other Beilein products have excelled at a young age and the four can be simplified to fit Michigan’s needs.

As a lefty at his size, Chatman is a natural fit for the the four – he operates from the right side of the floor (instead of moving left-to-right as a three like Manny Harris or a young Nik Stauskas, for example) and can theoretically cover all variations of the power forward: a swingman, a traditional post,or a designated space-and-shoot big. Michigan’s power forward position has looked different with different players: GRIII was essentially an outlet to finish around the rim, spacing the floor credibly enough to give Burke, Stauskas, and LeVert enough room to operate; Zack Novak was a fellow left-handed player who was basically a guard masquerading as a forward on defense. Unfortunately, Chatman never found a niche or a role, relegating him to the bench.